Boost Your Brain Health by Developing a Higher Purpose in Life, and Other Simple Brain-Boosting Strategies

Research suggests that personality traits like optimism and having a sense of purpose can benefit your health in a number of different ways, and ultimately help you live longer.

One recent study1,2 has even linked having a sense of purpose in life to reduced odds of suffering a stroke. More than 450 elderly were included in the study, and underwent annual physical and psychological evaluations until their death.

Purpose in life was judged on a five-point scale, and for every one-point increase in the score, the odds of having a macroscopic infarction (clearly visible stroke damage at autopsy) went down by about 50 percent.

In all, those with a strong sense of life purpose were 44 percent less likely to have suffered the kind of major brain tissue damage that drives up your risk of age-related dementia and disability.

This link persisted even after adjusting for contributing factors such as obesity, smoking, diabetes, blood pressure, and lack of exercise. Lead author Lei Yu told Reuters:3

“We and others have shown that purpose in life is protective against multiple adverse health outcomes in older age… Importantly, purpose in life may be improved through changes in behaviors or participation in activities like volunteerism, among other things.”

Having a sense of purpose in life is a key component of psychological well-being, and involves finding meaning in what you do and who you are, and leading a goal-directed life. According to the study:

“Older people with a greater sense of purpose are less likely to develop adverse health outcomes, including mortality, decline in physical function, frailty, disability, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and clinical stroke.”

Is Your Personality Geared for Longevity?

Having a sense of purpose and staying productive has also been shown to promote longevity in The Longevity Project,4 a Stanford study spanning 80 years. Here, your level of conscientiousness, specifically, was identified as a marker for longevity.

The reason for this, the researchers believe, is because conscientious behavior influences other behaviors.

For example, conscientious people tend to make healthier choices, such as avoiding smoking, choosing work they enjoy, and life partners they get along with—factors that can have a significant impact on their stress level and general contentment.

Conscientious people also tend to be more productive, even past conventional retirement age, and tend to regard their work as having purpose.

The Longevity Project dismisses the idea that hard work will kill you early. On the contrary, those who stay productive and work hard all their lives actually tend to be happier, healthier, and more social compared to those who don’t work as hard.

Other studies have shown that positive thoughts and attitudes can strengthen your immune system, decrease pain and chronic disease, and provide stress relief.

For instance, one study5 found that happiness, optimism, life satisfaction, and other positive psychological attributes are associated with a lower risk of heart disease.

It’s even been scientifically shown that happiness can alter your genes. A team of researchers at UCLA showed that people with a deep sense of happiness and well-being had lower levels of inflammatory gene expression and stronger antiviral and antibody responses.6

This falls into the realm of epigenetics—changing the way your genes function by altering environmental factors, which includes your thoughts and emotions.

How to Rewire Your Brain for Health and Happiness

But what if you’re not already optimistic, happy, satisfied, and living with a sense of purpose; what do you do then? Not to worry. While it may seem like certain psychological attitudes are ingrained to the point of being unalterable, the reality is you can change your attitude.

Forbes7 recently listed a number of strategies recommended by Davidson, Ph.D., author of The Emotional Life of Your Brain, to rewire the neural pathways in your brain to boost optimism, focus, self-awareness, and other health-boosting attitudes. This includes:

Surrounding yourself with reminders, such as photos or mementos, of happy times Regularly expressing gratitude Complementing people on things you like or appreciate about them Practicing mindfulness Visualizing compassion. “If you’d like to be more resilient, Davidson suggests doing this exercises for five to 10 minutes at a time, four or five times a week:

Visualize someone you know who is suffering–a neighbor who is ill or a friend struggling in their marriage–and on each inhalation imagine that you are taking on that suffering.

On each exhalation, imagine the suffering is transformed into compassion, which will help ease the person’s pain,” Forbes writes.

Your Brain Keeps Growing and Changing Throughout Life

Until recently, it was believed that the human brain could not generate new neural cells once brain cells died or were damaged. This old model is no longer relevant, as it’s been proven that your brain can not only generate new cells (neurogenesis), it can also create new neural pathways.

So, you actually have far more control over your brain and mind than you might think. As suggested by Dr. Davidson, you can even rewire your brain to become more optimistic—and that alone could create a beneficial feedback loop that promotes health in the rest of your body.

The ability of your brain to change and adapt in response to experience is known as neuroplasticity.8 You can think of those neurological changes as your brain’s way of tuning itself to meet your needs. One example of this is when you’re learning a new skill.

The more you focus and practice, the better you become, and this is a result of new neural pathways that form in response to your learning efforts. At the same time, your brain is undergoing “synaptic pruning”—elimination of the pathways you no longer need.

This phenomenon applies to emotional states as well. For example, if you have a history of anxiety, your neural pathways become…

Featured News

Total Shares 0 Jake AndersonOctober 22, 2015 (ANTIMEDIA) Washington, D.C. — The circus is back in town in Washington D.C. (actually, it’s part of a permanent residency), as a congressional panel spent Thursday peppering presidential candidate Hillary Clinton with questions about her role in the Benghazi consulate attack. The attack left four

A dynamic blend of aggregate and original daily news reporting, bringing the latest breaking alternative news to help inform, prepare, and arm you with the most-powerful of modern weapons; information.